A collaboration with product designers Priestman Goode, the Sorento streetlight was originally designed for lighting group DW Windsor for use in an urban lighting project in Cambridge. It has since been commercialised for use in other public spaces.

We developed the street light following on from a lighting strategy we had created for the City of Cambridge in the 1990s. The design responds to the lack of lighting products suitable for historic areas.

As designer Paul Priestman commented at the time: ‘When you’re specifying for historical areas, you either get appalling heritage Victoriana, or you get inappropriate modern designs. We wanted to create something in-between.’

The product is designed to work within an historic context. The aesthetic is based on what planners and heritage bodies will accept, and the design is conscious of what it takes to insert modern performance sensitively into a historic context.

A key feature of the light is the way heat is managed away from sensitive components such as control chips and sensors. The light runs exceptionally coolly, which gives it a very long life.